1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the manufacturing of electronic circuits and, more specifically, to processing performed at the end of manufacturing, once the different electronic circuit forming steps have been carried out on a wafer.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
The manufacturing of electronic circuits, on a semi-conductor substrate or on an insulating substrate (for example, made of glass) comprises many steps carried out on entire wafers, most often until the forming of conductive bumps intended for the electric connection of electronic circuit chips, once the chips have been individualized by dicing of the wafer.
In many applications, the wafer is thinned down to decrease the final thickness of the circuits. However, the thinning step is not the last one. There in particular remains to dice the wafer in order to individualize the electronic circuit chips. A problem then is that a thinned-down wafer no longer provides a sufficient mechanical strength to be handled as it is from one piece of equipment to another. This problem is present as soon as the thickness of a wafer is below a few hundreds of micrometers, typically less than 200 micrometers, knowing that wafers are currently thinned down to thicknesses on the order of 50 micrometers.